Egyptian athletes furious as squash snubbed for 2020 Tokyo Olympics

The 2020 Olympic committee has snubbed squash’s second bid for joining the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

Squash was snubbed by the the 2020 Olympic committee in favour of karate, surfing, softball and sports climbing. The committee is yet to decide which of those five is to be included but squash has been officially left out.

After being snubbed back in 2013 in Buenos Aires, squash was given a second chance. The International Olympic committee had changed its rules for hosts to propose sports which are popular in their countries, but squash suffered a setback after wrestling was reinstated. Due to its huge popularity, not only in Japan, but worldwide, squash was recommended.

In the beginning, squash was selected along with seven other sports from a 26 sports shortlist to be recommended to the IOC. The 8 sports to be recommended were to be narrowed down to 5 which squash was not one of them.

Photo by: http://www.worldsquash.org/

The world of squash was outraged by the committee’s decision; famous Egyptian players like world No 1 Mohamed El Shorbagy, his brother Marwan El Shorbagy and women’s world No 1 Raneem El Welily took to Twitter to express their disappointment.

Have no words to describe how disappointing this is becoming!! #Olympics

President of World Squash Federation Narayana Ramachandran was left ‘devastated’ by the committee’s decision, saying: “After our 12-year journey to join the Olympic Games programme, and the opportunity of a ‘second chance’ after the heart-break of missing out in our first 2020 bid in Buenos Aires two years ago, I am utterly devastated on behalf of our great sport that our dream of taking part in the Tokyo Games cannot now be realised.”

“I don’t believe we could have done more to get our message across to both the Tokyo 2020 Games hosts and the IOC of how Squash could bring something special as an addition to the Programme,” he added